Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I think there is always more we can do in considering questions of resilience and in building resilience for communities. Minister Shorten and I actually made some announcements about that a few weeks ago. There is always more we can do, in working with local communities, to consider resilience questions.

The member who asked the question would be aware that there was an inquiry following our worst summer of natural disasters—the summer in which we saw unbelievably extensive flooding across Queensland, which was the summer between 2010 and 2011. There were inquiries following those disasters which looked at different models for financing natural disaster responses. I know there are a variety of views but I am not persuaded of those models. But I think there is always more we can do, working with communities, on building resilience. Our emergency services and our community structures are very sophisticated on these questions now, but they too would reflect that they learn from every natural disaster and event. There is always something more you can learn for next time around. Certainly we—and on this I am confident I can speak on behalf of my state and territory colleagues—are always open to learning those lessons and to working through what can be done better next time.

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